Italy's First Steps in Censoring the Internet 90
mijio writes "It's not the first time that Italy discusses Internet censorship. The last year, after some guys appeared in a video punching and blaming a kid with Down syndrome, Minister of Education Fioroni brought in to trial two of Google Italy's managers and then proposed and strongly sustained his idea of censoring the Internet to protect the young. Now Ricardo Levi, the prime minister's right hand, is finally successful in promulgating his law on internet censorship. With the goal of "promoting and enriching the pluralism of information," the law rules that everyone involved in "editorial activity" must be subscribed to the "Registry of Operators of Communication" to be prosecutable in case of defamation, where "editorial product" is defined as "any product with purpose of information, education, divulgation, entertainment, aimed at publication, no matter the form it is realized in and the mean it is distributed with." When inquired about the effects of this rule for bloggers, Levi responded, "We have no interest in touching amatorial or personal sites, it would be not feasible". The Times speaks about this paradox as well."
This is happening in Germany as well (Score:5, Interesting)
The background to this is that a German porn site had to implement stringent controls to make sure the underage did not manage to sample their wares. Youporn did not bother with this and so had an unfair advantage. I read that Youporn is something like the 14th most popular site in Germany.
Several other organisations apparently have similar plans to shut down access to some site or other.
They have it backwards. (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:failed laws pass camouflaged after a year or so (Score:3, Interesting)
That won't happen easily. The privacy laws here are *very* strict, and often governments or other institutions have been slapped for violating them, publicly. To use personal data you have to state exactly why are you using them, and you can always have them removed. Even when there are cameras for crime prevention, usually there are notices and the data, unless there is a court order, must be destroyed within a small time frame (IIRC, 48 hours).
Italy has many faults, but the privacy law was not one of them.And about the Constitution, you are mistaken: although IMO it needs to change in other areas (it is still the product of a compromise done in 1948), it has a rather strong perception in the public and political view. That doesn't prevent people to try and mess up with it, of course, but such changes won't go too unnoticed.